My PhD research (2016) has been an art-based practice-led project focused on Chinese
'inside painting' in glass art. It has attempted to create a 'new model' for Chinese traditional
inside painting through the creation of contemporary glass artworks. This research mainly
used studio-based art practices, inspired by traditional inside painting of Chinese snuff
bottles, traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, influenced by Taoism, together with
Western glass painting, printing and calligraphy in order to reduce some of the existing
limitations of traditional methods.

Traditional inside painting techniques have developed over more than 200 years into a
popular form of Chinese folk art, often based on glass snuff bottles with painted decoration
on the inside. The craftsmen who make these pieces usually pay more attention to inside
painting skills and overlook their own artistic expression. The designs used tend to be
repetitive and copies of existing designs from other media such as ink painting or
photographs.

In this research, a body of inside painted glass works was produced to show
how the glass form and painted content were combined This work also helped to establish
possible ways to reduce the limitations of traditional inside painting of Chinese snuff bottles.
It is hoped that this research will promote the development of traditional inside painting
and lead to inside glass painting developing as a strand of the contemporary glass arts.